MegaMan Board Game

Today we are going to look at “Mega Man: The Board Game” by Jason Hawronsky, Matt Whitaker, and Jasco Games.

Mega Man: The Board Game

This is a competitive game for 2-6 players based on the video game Mega Man. To setup, place the board in the center of the table, setup each robot master board around it, place the robot master figures, and Dr. Wily in their respective spaces, place the minion tokens around each player, and each challenge deck on its respective robot master board, place each players hero figure on a different robot master board, grab a health counter, set it to 28 health, take 3 life tokens, and 3 energy cubes, take an action deck for each player, shuffle, and then draw four cards.

Game Setup

On your turn you will reveal a challenge card from the deck of the robot master you are attempting to fight, the challenge card will have a number of symbols on the bottom that you will have to roll to complete the challenge. You may choose to play an ability card (or use your hero’s, or any collected boss abilities, once per challenge) from your hand to aid you in this challenge, so long as it doesn’t surpass the action point value on the top left of the challenge card. Then, moving clockwise from the active player, the other players may play action cards from their hands to try and foil the hero, again provided that their combined cards do not surpass the action point value of the challenge. This continues until every player has either passed or the action point values are reached. Any time you or another player plays a card, they draw back up to four action cards. After all action cards have resolved, you select a number of “Threat” dice to roll on the challenge, you start each turn with 10 threat dice, and after you use the dice on a challenge, they are removed from your dice pool. For example, if you use 3 dice on a challenge, you will have 7 remaining for future challenges. you may spend weapon energy cubes to re-roll any number of dice until you meet the challenge requirements, or run out of energy and fail the challenge.

Dice

The dice faces are: Hit, Aim, Run, Jump, Energy, and Dr. Wily. Hits are used to damage enemies, Aim, Run, and Jump are used to complete challenges, Energy can heal you by 2 points, and Dr. Wily usually means bad stuff.

Once all rolling is done, you resolve any damage and effects, of both enemies and the player, on the dice, and any cards played by all players. If successful, you move to the next space on the robot master board (if not, you remain in the space you are in, and your turn immediately ends). You may then choose to press on, repeating this process as may times as you can, or you pass your turn. allowing the next player clockwise to take their hero turn.

Life Counters

If ever you lose enough health that your hero is killed, you remain in the space you are currently in, lose a life token, and your turn ends. On your next turn, you start with full health, and energy. If you haven’t died, you will only refill your weapon energy cubes to full (usually 3 cubes). If you lose all of your lives, you must remove your hero from the board, take 3 new lives, reset your health and energy, and then on your next turn may place your hero on any of the robot master’s boards at the beginning space (including the one you were on previously).

Lives

When you reach the space adjacent to a robot master boss, you will flip your hero’s reference card over to the boss battle side. This will change what you do on your turn, as the battle will take place over a number of rounds (consisting of one hero turn and one boss turn). You may play one action card per turn, even after rolling dice. You may play your hero and/or boss abilities, once per turn. Roll all dice equal to your threat value (6 dice usually). Score dice and allocate damage and effects (Only hits count against bosses, and you can’t use any energy rolled to heal). The Dr. Wily player to your left (and then their left after each turn) will roll dice equal to the Robot Master’s threat level, then allocate damage and effects as listed on the boss card. This process repeats until there is a victor! If you die, lose a life and continue on your next turn at full health and energy fighting the boss. If you run out of lives, you must start over, as dictated above. But, if you are victorious, you gain the boss card as a new ability (flip it over to the boss power side), refill Your health and energy to full, and remove your figure from the board and end your turn. You will select a new boss to challenge (and place your figure on the first space of their board) on your next turn. If you were the first to defeat that particular boss, you gain their figure as a trophy! The boss trophies can be returned on any subsequent turn to change any one die to a face of your choice.

Robot Masters and Dr. Wily

Mega Man

After you have defeated at least 2 robot masters, you may move to the center board and attempt to stop Dr. Wily, you take on challenges as before, and when you get to the space adjacent to Wily you fight him just like any other boss, except that when you defeat him, you must flip his card over and fight him again!

And that’s it! The first player to defeat Dr. Wily wins! The game retails for $79.99, and comes with a ton of stuff, including enough cards, tokens, life counters, and pre-painted miniatures for 2-6 players, 12 custom dice, main board and 6 robot master boards. You can check it out here: Jasco Games: Mega Man: The Board Game

Plus, if you want to play as a different character, you can purchase hero add-on packs for (at time of this writing) Rush, Roll, and Proto Man for $14.99.

Extra Characters; Rush, Dr. Light, Roll, and Proto Man

And if you noticed empty spaces around the main board for more robot masters, that is because there is a 7-8 player expansion, which adds everything needed for more players, and 2 more robot masters for only $39.99.

Expansion

Expansion Robot Masters

I give the game 8 Robot Masters out of 8!

Until next time, keep playing games, and all your base are belong to us.